Texas on the Potomac welcomes political commentary from across the political spectrum. Today, we offer a guest blog written by economist and author Jerry Jasinowski, former president of the National Association of Manufacturers and The Manufacturing Institute.

Jerry Jasinowski (Official photo)

As a nonpartisan commentator, I make it my business from time to time to point out some of the more obvious examples of political demagoguery on both sides of the political spectrum — giving equal time to each side, of course.

I begin with the continuing effort by President Obama and his campaign team to besmirch Mitt Romney’s work with Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Romney helped found. Obama’s general thrust is that the very business of private equity is a conspiracy to ship American jobs overseas.

One can only wonder if the president and his team actually believe what they are saying or are merely resorting to demagoguery to placate the party base. I can understand their desire to distract voters from the economy, but the last thing we need is a chief executive undercutting the free enterprise system. Private equity is not the problem. Private equity investors quite simply take over struggling enterprises and try to make them competitive and profitable, and they are successful more often than not.

Over the past half century, private equity firms have emerged as a robust alternative to the stock market. Today, some 2,600 private equity firms are invested in more than 15,000 U.S. companies that employ about eight million people. In 2011 alone, they invested $144 billion in more than 1,700 U.S. –based firms. Private equity firms have nothing to apologize for, and in fact deserve a lot of credit for the mostly positive role they play in our economy. Many pension funds and public endowments have greatly benefited by investing in private equity.

Is Mitt Romney a venture capitalist or a vulture capitalist? (David Horsey/Hearst Newspapers)

Our country has always struggled with immigration as a rich variety of foreign peoples have moved here in a series of waves. For many years, the Irish were denigrated, and then Germans, Italians and various peoples from Eastern Europe.

But every group to arrive on these shores has made wonderful contributions to our economy and culture, and we are the better for it. Without question we have a legitimate issue regarding illegal immigration, and the reluctance of many newcomers to learn English creates a separate set of problems. But for the most part, the latest wave of immigrants is well within the historical pattern of people from poor countries coming here in search of opportunity, and largely taking jobs that few Americans are willing to perform.

I personally would like to see President Obama and Gov. Romney lay off private equity and immigration and focus on economic growth and jobs – offering sensible plans for near term stimulus and long term deficit reduction.